Special Screening of the Austrian film Road to Mecca at the Insight Film Festival in Manchester.

The Insight Festival brings together films and audiences from around the world for a weekend spectacular of screenings, discussion and debate exploring and challenging aspects of religion and belief.

This year Radical Middle Way, an organisation that develops fresh thinking about Islam and its place in the modern world while working for positive social change for all, has partnered with the Insight Festival to showcase powerful film that explore Islam in Britain, Europe and beyond.

Radical Middle Way is proud to present a special screening of A ROAD TO MECCA: The Journey of Muhammad Asad (Austria, Dir: Georg Misch, 2008)  which explores the life and legacy of one of contemporary Islam’s most engaging, fascinating and formidable figures. Born Jewish, but eventually converting to Islam, the film traces Asad’s spiritual journey, from Vienna to the Arabian Desert to today’s Ground Zero, visiting the places where Asad lived and travelled. A ROAD TO MECCA challenges deeply rooted prejudices by revealing the distance between fundamentalism and violence and the core beliefs of a profoundly humane religion.

A ROAD TO MECCA was awarded the 2008 Jury Award at the FIDADOC Film Festival in Morocco and the Best Cinematography Award at the 2008 Diagonale Festival of Austrian Films.

The screening will be followed by a selection of films from inaugural Framing British Muslims film competition.